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Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Hello everybody! Here I am, right on time to reveal the cake of the month! We, The Cake Slice Bakers, bake a different cake every month. This year we have been baking from the beautiful and awesome book "Vintage Cakes" by Julie Richardson (who, by the way, is as sweet as her cakes! she rocks!)

This month the cake that "won" with a majority of votes was a "Maple Pecan Chiffon Cake" with a Brown Butter Frosting... It was fun making this cake... and it looked beautiful when it came out of the oven... I wish I could tell you what this cake tastes like but... MY CAKE was bland and dry... and it's not the recipe's fault... I FORGOT ONE VERY IMPORTANT INGREDIENT: Brown sugar! Yes!! How could I forget? I don't know! I just know I hate myself for forgetting about it because I invested so much in this cake... time, money and hopes! LOL! ...

So... here are the pictures of my attempt... I will probably have to make it again just because I am THAT OBSESSIVE and I will have to know what it is like if I add all the ingredients the recipe calls for!

On a brighter note... it seems that hubby (and friends) didn't find it bad (wait, hubby is just telling me that the frosting grossed him out, he said it's a buttery/gelatinous disgusting thing)... and I felt the same way (and I didn't even forget any ingredient for that one)... my friends said it was a good "coffee cake" ... I am sure it would've been better with the brown sugar... Anyway... don't judge this book based on this cake... because I've loved... LOVED... the rest of the cakes from it!

Now... if you want to see the hopefully more successful cakes of the rest of the Cake Slice Bakers hop around through their blogs as they join the party with their cakes of the month!

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Camo Cupcakes, that's what someone from church ordered last week for our "Choir Kick-off" in church... Don't ask me why it was camo cupcakes... let me just say it was fun! LOL!

So... if your hubby is a hunter or you want to make a special batch of cupcakes for Memorial Day/Veterans Day or if you want to make a birthday boy very happy these cupcakes are perfect for the occasion!

Now... It's just really simple, you just have to be a little patient... if you look anywhere else online you will see that everybody is using cake mixes for these... I guess they say "well, they're cute enough and there's enough work involved with the elaboration, why bother making them from scratch?", plus, there's a big reason why people use cake mixes for these, think about it, you want the batter to be "the same" so that it doesn't have any problem with different textures/rising levels, etc. BUT you can still make a delicious batter from scratch that is good for this purpose and it doesn't have to be too complicated.

What I used is my easiest "go to" chocolate cupcake ingredients:

Delicious and Fluffy Chocolate Cupcakes(Yield: 12 cupcakes)

1 1/2cups flour

1 cup
granulated sugar

1 teaspoon
baking soda

1 teaspoon
salt

1/3cup
cocoa powder

1/2cup vegetable
oil (preferably safflower)

1 cup
water

1 teaspoon
vanilla extract

1 tablespoon
vinegar

As you can see the recipe calls for cocoa powder and it yields 12 standard sized cupcakes. So I just recommend you to make 2 batches. 1 exactly like the recipe calls and an additional batch where you will omit the cocoa powder and just increase the amount of all purpose flour with an additional 1/3 of a cup and 2 tsp. of vanilla extract instead of only 1.

The ingredients above you just have to mix them all together, the order doesn't matter too much, but I do prefer to mix flour, salt and baking soda first (and cocoa for the chocolate batter) and then just incorporate sugar, oil, water, vinegar and vanilla.

Once you have both batters (chocolate and vanilla) you will divide each batter in half, so you will have two chocolate batters and two vanilla batters, having done this just add some black gel food coloring to 1 of the chocolate batters and some green gel food coloring to 1 of the vanilla batter (plus some extra tablespoons of chocolate batter just to create the dry hue of military green you need) and voila, you will have 4 different colors of two different batters, 1 black chocolate, 1 brown chocolate, 1 military green vanilla, 1 plain vanilla.

What you want to do at this point is preheat your oven at 350 F, line your muffin tin with baking cups (cupcake paper liners) and fill plastic bags (ziploc or piping bags will work) with each of the batters, pipe the batters into the cupcake liners starting with the plain vanilla (about 1 1/2 tbsp. or so) to cover the bottom of the cup and then just start incorporating alternately the rest of the colors (even if you have to do more than one layer). Make sure to not cover the layer of vanilla entirely with the next color, you are adding the rest of the colors in the form of "spots", let the batter make spots that take their own shape, the batter for these cupcakes is "runny enough" to blend with the rest of the batter and thick enough to not mix with it (if that makes sense?). So... when you add each color you can make your own pattern, for example: In the left a green spot, then brown in the middle, then let some vanilla come through (or add more) and then the black, etc... Fill your cupcakes up to 3/4 but no more. Bake for about 15-16 minutes, insert a toothpick to check doneness, if the toothpick comes out clean the cupcakes are ready (do not overbake)

Here's how they will look:

See? They turn out fluffy and beautiful! Now... for the frosting you can use your favorite vanilla buttercream recipe and just add neon orange gel food coloring (or you can even make a camo frosting if you use green, chocolate and vanilla and then just pipe it all together). But this is easier and I think way brighter as well! And people can still appreciate the "camo" part of the cupcakes!

Cream the butter and sugar together, add the rest of the ingredients (add more or less whipping cream to reach the desired thickness/consistency) and mix on high until fluffy and airy. Ah! YUM! Easy and delicious! Then just add the food coloring and mix just until evenly blended. I piped it using a closed star tip starting in the outside and ending in the center (kind of overlapping with every turn and circle).

There you have it! Camo Cupcakes with Neon Orange Frosting... FROM SCRATCH!

Thursday, August 1, 2013

Today, five years ago, a wonderful project was born: "The Cake Slice Bakers", it was a wonderful idea from the beginning, passionate bakers sharing experiences and eating cake! Nothing could go wrong! And nothing has! It hasn't all been a smooth ride but we continue to grow and get stronger as a group! The Cake Slice Bakers is now on Facebook: The Cake Slice Bakers for everyone to join and enjoy our cakes as we bake them! For such a special occasion I ended up deciding to bake two cakes... One that I had never tried (this important event deserves to get out of what I know and try something different) and one that I love and that I have made many times :

First I made:

Banana Chiffon Cake:

5 YEARS!

And garnished it with a Brown Sugar Whipped Cream, the Banana Chiffon Cake originally called for Walnuts, these recipes (both cake and whipped cream) you can find it in The Cake Book by Tish Boyle which was my first book to bake from with The Cake Slice Bakers

And the other cake is a combination of the two books I've baked from with the group: The Devilishly Moist Chocolate cake is again from The Cake Book but the Dreamy Vanilla Buttercream to frost it is from: Vintage Cakes by Julie Richardson.

Here it is:

We have enjoyed baking together so much that we love sharing our cakes, so make sure you follow us on Facebook, who knows you might want to join us to bake on our next year! We will open a window of opportunity for anyone to join soon! (very soon)